One of my big females was hanging around rather lethargic on Friday, swollen bigger than a house, about ready to drop. So I put her in a breeder. About 5 hours later, I checked on her and found she had dropped at least 75 eggs (yes, I counted) and every one was not fertilized. After about 48 hour they completely dissolved. I released her into the tank this morning.

No problems or questions, just amazed that she could have gotten by 5 horndog young males and not been fertilized. The males are her sons.

willow

10-26-2008 08:52 AM

gosh,that's surprising,
perhaps the males are infertile ?

AFAngel

10-26-2008 12:30 PM

I didnt know that they would drop them because they were unfertilized. Sometimes the stress of being in a breeder trap can cause them to drop a few days early, before the fish actually have a chance to break out of their eggsacs inside the female. Onetime I performed a water change and moved a tank around a bit, and my female went into labor like 5 or 6 days early, and every other "fry" that came out of her was in the form of an egg.

Oldman47

10-31-2008 10:38 PM

The eggs were not necessarily unfertilized. The more common livebearers carry eggs that have been fertilized while those eggs develop into fry. They are not "true" livebearers in the sense of having a placenta that nourishes the young. They are eggs much like an egg layer would have except that they are protected by being in the female. If the fry are born a little prematurely, they often still have a yolk sac attached to them. If they are a little more premature, they look just like the fish eggs that they are.